Existing comment:
Dorothy Parker
1893–1967
Born Long Branch, New Jersey
"There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words," claimed writer and magazine editor Dorothy Parker. One of the most caustic literary figures of her age, Parker wrote for Vogue and Vanity Fair before becoming a founding editor of the New Yorker in 1925. She published three volumes of sarcastic poetry, including Sunset Gun (1928) and Death and Taxes (1931). Her most successful short story, "Big Blonde," won the O. Henry Award in 1929. In the 1930s, Parker began writing screenplays, including the original version of A Star Is Born (1937), for which she and her co-writer received an Academy Award nomination.
"Friend of Dorothy," gay slang for a fellow homo-sexual, is partly attributed to Parker's cultivation of close friendships with openly gay men, including photographer George Platt Lynes, who made this portrait a year before The Portable Dorothy Parker was published.
George Platt Lynes (1907–1955)
Gelatin silver print, 1943 |